My kids and I used to treasure hunt

When my daughter, Melissa, was in college she was asked to share a family memory. She told how, when she was little, we’d grab small shovels and buckets and walk to the back of our property. There used to be an old homestead years ago and we’d found it on one of our walks. Nothing was left but a mound of dirt as high as my shoulders.

When my three kids and I dug into that dirt for the first time we found a pile of treasure.

Old cobalt blue bottles. A silver dime. A jelly glass with a 50’s character etched on the side. We even found the tailgate of a rare Edsel truck!

We went back several times, always excited.

When Melissa shared that story, one of her classmates stopped her with this question: Wait, were you poor? I mean, your favorite memory from growing up was digging in the trash?

Read Day 1 – Filled in Come With Me Devotional: A Yearlong Adventure in Following Jesus.

I’m not a fighter

If someone is itching for a fight, I’m itching for a resolution. Put me in a boxing ring and I’ll be the one climbing through the ropes to get to safety.

Though I don’t have the heart of a fighter, I am invited to be a warrior.

So are you.

Today’s invitation is to exchange battling for victory to battling from a place of victory.

There’s a huge difference.

If you are fighting for victory, that’s your definition of winning. You put up your dukes. You do what you think needs to be done. You often wonder why you feel so bruised and battered.

Fighting from victory is knowing that you aren’t alone in the fight. You fight like a warrior rather than a scrappy kid in a ring. You don’t enter battle unwise or unaware. You aren’t aiming for a temporary prize. You choose gentleness as your strength, and faith is the condition of your heart.

I was angry.

The feelings were real. We walked away from church, my hands tightly at my side.

How did things go wrong so fast?

And at church?

Seriously.

The funny thing is that as I type this, I can’t remember what made me so mad. If I think about it for a minute or two, all the details will flood back. And yet the fact that I can’t remember them just might mean they weren’t as important as they felt in the moment.